Chapter 22: Our Financial System

Chapter 22: Our Financial System

Chapter 18: Co-operating With Governments

The Government of the Dutch East Indies, which was in the hands, at the time, of a military man, has won forever the honour of appreciating and utilising The Army of The General they had never seen, before any of those who had seen him. Certainly, The General never ran after earthly rulers, or showed any disposition to court their favour; but he said constantly, "Here we are; if any Government, municipal or national, likes to use us, we can save them more than half of what they now spend upon their poor and criminal classes, and do for these far more than Christian Government officials, however excellent, ever hope to do. They are invariably so bound to avoid any meddling with religion that they cannot bring to bear upon those most in need of it, the heavenly light and love and power, in which we place all our confidence for dealing with these classes."

"Gentlemen," said a Town Councillor, in a German city, when the question of subsidising The Army was being discussed, "The Army can do for your poor what you never can attempt. You can only deal with them from without. The Army works upon them from within, and produces results that will considerably lighten your burdens."

The General had arranged for the Dutch Indies to be missioned from Australia, that country being our nearest Field and one accustomed to deal with pioneer effort. But when he found that Dutch officialdom dreaded contact with British agents, though ready to welcome Dutch ones, he very quickly changed his plans, and as soon as the Colonial Government found that The Army was as much Dutch as English, and could send them a Dutch leader, they showed themselves ready to use us as fully as possible.

Our Officers in every town and village are supplied with all the medicines and bandages they can use, for the Government has found that they live amongst the poorest all the time, and are always ready to bathe and bandage their wounded limbs and feet, or to give them the few medicines needed to combat the ordinary maladies. Moreover, from some terrible losses by death of Officers, in our earliest years there, it was made only too plain to every one that our Officers would not abandon their people in times of cholera or other epidemics, but would rather suffer and die with them.

More unsanitary surroundings than we have in lovely Java could scarcely be imagined, and no government can hope to alter the habits of an entire people very rapidly. The Chinese and others in the cities have never yet begun to consider dirt in house or street as dangerous, and the entire population has grown up with such a love for bathing in the very same canals which serve largely for drainage and every other purpose, that there cannot, for a long time to come, be great hopes of much sanitary improvement.

But when it was seen that we had Officers not only willing and ready to live and die with the people, but, also capable of lifting them into a new life, and of carrying out any simple administrative duties that might be laid upon them, we had first one and then another of the Government's institutions offered for our care, as well as the provisioning of the hospitals. From daybreak in the morning till the end of their evening Meetings, our Officers may be seen showing the people, old and young, brotherly and sisterly love; and though they may not, as yet, have succeeded in many places in raising up such a native force as we should desire, the Government has found them as persevering as if they had gained the crowd which their toils and endurances have deserved.

The first Leper Institution placed in our charge was so rapidly transformed from a place of despair and misery into a home of Salvation hope and joy, that the Government naturally desired to see more such institutions, adequate to receive the entire leper population of the islands, which is, alas! large.

Our position in Java, and the consequent discussion of us in the Dutch Parliament, led to our first public recognition in the world as a Christian force. Because we do not baptise with water there has been in Java a disposition amongst some Christian teachers to refuse to any of our people burial in a Christian cemetery. But when in the Dutch budget discussion this was made an objection to our receiving any grant, the Colonial Minister simply read out the whole of our Articles of War, and asked how any one could refuse to recognise as Christians those who had signed such declarations.

The Governments of the various Australian Colonies must, however, have the credit of first giving to our Officers public patronage. As has already been mentioned, the Governors, Premiers, and Ministers have, for some twenty-seven years past, been seen presiding over the anniversaries of our Colonial work, speaking in no measured terms of all our activities, and so helping us to get the means to support them.

The Queen Mother and the present Queen of Holland were the first royal personages personally to visit our Institutions, although the present King of Denmark, when Crown Prince, had for years used our Refuges in that country for cases he thought deserving, and his brother, King Haakon, of Norway, attended, as a warm friend, one of The General's Meetings in Christiania.

Canadian and South African Governors and Ministers have acted like the Australian ones in their public expressions of confidence in us, and they have given us very considerable liberty in their prisons, so that most of the criminal population comes more or less under our influence.

The greatest of our governmental victories have, however, been won in Switzerland and Germany, where we were for so many years looked upon as a dangerous, if not harmful, influence, owing chiefly to the gross calumnies of "Christian" teachers and writers. The results of our work upon those whose lives had been a disgrace and burden to the community could not be hidden, however, and there is now scarcely a cantonal government in Switzerland which does not subsidise some one or other of our Institutions. The cities of Hamburg and Elberfeld, in Germany, have led the way in granting to us similar assistance, and it can only be a question of time before we gravitate into an equally honoured position elsewhere. For although we continue to keep as far as possible aloof from all parties, and party feeling, and have not, therefore, the means of influencing and obtaining grants from politicians in the ordinary way, we compel attention by what we do, and have, undoubtedly, done more than any other religious community to create that inclination towards intelligent care for the criminal and outcast which is almost becoming a fashion, in governmental circles, nowadays.

It begins to look as if, had The General lived, some of the South American republics would have been the first, after all, to gladden his heart by a hearty and handsome co-operation. For twenty years he pleaded for an opportunity to show what could be done for those whose life and character have been wrecked amidst the breakers of modern life, if they were removed from their old surroundings and compelled to live under our influence in country air. We have come so far in this direction, in New Zealand, that we have bought islands, where former inebriates and their children can be kept completely severed from their old temptations, and so have every opportunity to begin a new life if they will. Men, as well as young people, are frequently handed over to us by the authorities; but there is not yet anywhere a sufficient power given to detain those who are disinclined to hard work.

And recently, The General was promised, in the course of interviews with authorities, a considerable extension in the United Kingdom of the liberty to deal with prisoners, which we have long enjoyed in America and Canada. The long night, when prisoners were treated only as troublesome animals against whom society needed protection, seems to be passing, and with the new, earnest resolve to try and fit them for a better life, which, without God's help, can never be done, we are looking forward to greatly improved opportunities. In India, as has already been noted, many persons belonging to the criminal tribes are already under our care, and, wherever we have the opportunity to prove what the power of God can do in such hearts, there can be no doubt of the ultimate result.

Upon the question of temperance, there is happily a widespread awakening amongst the nations. So convinced are all Governments and peoples that drinking and crime are closely connected, that much has already been done, with good effect, to lessen the sale of intoxicants in many lands, and more is being promised. Anxious as we are to see the drink-traffic abolished everywhere, it has never appeared to us to be desirable to join in agitations of a political kind on the subject. And the wisdom of this attitude has been shown, on both sides of the Atlantic, by the manner in which this question has been used to embitter party strife. But it was a puzzle at first to know by which course to steer. When a Licensing Bill was before the English House of Commons, The General wrote:--

"The Licensing Bill has given me much anxiety, mainly because I see so imperfectly what we ought to do. However, we shall do what seems the best to be done--with what success has to be seen. I am heartily sick of politics and parties, and that, mainly, because they seem to me so insincere.

"What an unsatisfactory thing is life, apart from the real work we do for God and the Salvation of souls! I want more faith, more conquering faith. I must have it.

"I have got work to-day to do that cannot be done without Divine wisdom. I have asked for it. I am asking for it while I write, and, surely, it will be given; and yet it seems as though the Spirit whispers in my ear, 'You will not believe you have it when it is imparted.' But I will. Anyhow, I will make a desperate effort to believe that the Spirit of the living God guides my judgment, however I may feel, or whatever the outcome may be. Pray for me. I cling to life and the work I love so well."

Remarkably enough, the German police, who, more than any other, suspected and watched and restricted us at first, have become the first convinced of the value of our operations, and those in the city of Cologne have been the very first heartily to arrange for our co-operation with them by placing at our disposal a convenient hand-waggon for the transport of helpless drunkards, and by arranging for their officials to call us upon the telephone, whenever such help is needed, instead of taking the poor drunkards to the cells.

This plan was arrived at only after the police had seen the work carried out by our people with an ambulance which required the services of two strong men. But there is reason to suppose that our cordial relationships with the authorities in Cologne and elsewhere are largely due to the good impression made upon them by The General himself. Of his great Meeting in Cologne, attended by many officials, and other persons of influence, he wrote:--

"I had certainly a remarkable Campaign, and my Meeting in Cologne was one of the most remarkable in my history. Oh, it was a moving, hope-inspiring affair. Oh, what wonders the dear Salvation Army may yet accomplish in the Fatherland! I am sure it will be so, whoever lives to see it."

Thank God that he was spared to see another seven years of progress in that direction since this was written.

In Japan, which cannot be supposed to be specially favourable to any Christian Society, we have long had opportunity regularly to visit all persons in custody, and as we have already seen, to invite all girls living an immoral life to come to our Institutions.

Why is there still difficulty in the way of our work for the prisoners, and other needy ones in Christendom? Chiefly, because there are chaplains and others specially appointed to deal with such needs, and who, naturally, do not wish to see others "interfering," as they think, with their parishioners. In very many cases nowadays there is a much better feeling than formerly, and such persons heartily welcome our help, knowing that we never wish to meddle with any one's work, but only to work where others can gain no entrance.

In a certain Australian jail, at the time when men there could be sentenced to death for many crimes other than murder, a condemned man was in such agonies of remorse that none of the warders could get any rest. The help of one of our Officers was greatly desired, but the chaplain would not consent, so that our Officer could not be admitted. In another part of the prison, however, one of our Soldiers was a warder, and those who knew this sought him out and brought him to the distressed sinner, whom he very soon succeeded in leading to the Saviour, who gave him a peace as complete as that which He gave to His companion in crucifixion.

It is by this patience and efficiency that our Officers, wherever they get opportunity, win the favour of authorities, prisoners, and sufferers of every kind. Therefore, we reckon that it can only be a question of time before our way is opened to do far more than ever for the friendless of every land.

In times of special emergency, The General's Officers always find an opportunity to distinguish themselves. Thus, in the last earthquake of Jamaica our Officers in Kingston were said to have been the calmest and readiest to undertake all that needed to be done. In those terrible days, again, of earthquake and fire in San Francisco the Salvationists provided food and shelter for the Chinese, and others of the most despised; and in South Italy such was the impression produced by the way in which our Officers laboured, when Calabria was desolated by earthquake, that our Officer there, Commissioner Cosandey, had the honour of a Knighthood conferred upon him in recognition of the manner in which he had superintended the distribution of blankets and other articles provided out of the Lord Mayor of London's fund, the skill he manifested gaining the approval of both the Italian Government and the British Ambassador there.

We seek neither honours nor rewards, however; but only the opportunity to carry out our first General's plans for the good of all men everywhere.

Chapter 19: Conquering Death

Only those who have had some experience of a perfect life-partnership--such as existed for thirty-five years between The General and his wife--can form any conception of the sufferings he had to pass through, in connexion with her prolonged illness and death.

She had always been more or less delicate in health, yet had, through nearly all those years, triumphed so completely over weakness and suffering as to be at once one of the happiest of wives and mothers, and the most daring of comrades in the great War.

During much of 1887 she had suffered more than usually, and yet had taken part with him in many great demonstrations; but in February, 1888, new symptoms made their appearance, and she decided upon consulting one of the ablest of London physicians, because she had always dreaded that her end would come, like that of her mother, through cancer, and wished to use every possible care to prolong, as much as might be possible, her days of helpfulness.

When in February, 1888, Sir James Paget told her that she had, undoubtedly, got this disease, and would, probably, not be alive for more than eighteen months or two years, she received the announcement with the greatest calm and fortitude. The General says:--

"After hearing the verdict of the doctors, she drove home alone. That journey can better be imagined than described. She told me how, as she looked upon the various scenes through the cab windows, it seemed to her as if sentence of death had been passed upon everything; how she had knelt upon the cab floor and wrestled in prayer; and how the realisation of our grief swept over her.

"I shall never forget, in this world or the next, that meeting. I had been watching for the cab, and had run out to meet and help her up the steps. She tried to smile upon me, through her tears; but, drawing me into the room, she unfolded to me gradually the result of her interview. I sat down speechless. She rose from her seat and came and knelt beside me, saying, 'Do you know what was my first thought? That I should not be there to nurse you, at your last hour.'

"I was stunned. I felt as if the whole world was coming to a standstill. She talked like a heroine, like an angel, to me. She talked as she had never talked before. I could say nothing. I could only kneel with her and try to pray.

"I was due in Holland for some large Meetings. I had arranged to travel there that very night. She would not hear of my remaining at home for her sake. Never shall I forget starting out that evening, with the mournful tidings weighing like lead upon my heart. Oh, the conflict of that night journey! I faced two large congregations, and did my best, although it seemed to me that I spoke as one in a dream. Leaving the Meetings to be continued by others, I returned to London the following evening. And then followed, for me, the most painful experience of my life. To go home was anguish. To be away was worse. Life became a burden, almost too heavy to be borne, until God in a very definite manner comforted my heart."

After this, there were two years and a half of such tortures for him to bear! For some time, indeed, Mrs. Booth was still able occasionally to take part with him, even in very large Meetings. But any one can understand how such privileges only increased his sense of coming loss.

Her last address was delivered in the City Temple, on June 21, 1888, and she had to remain for nearly an hour after in the pulpit before she could move. Nevertheless, she was able to continue her help by writing for our publications, and to individuals, for a long time after this. Before the Self-Denial Week of 1888 she wrote to our Soldiers:--

"Although not able to be at the front of the battle in person, my heart is there, and the greatest pain I suffer arises from my realisation of the vast opportunities of the hour, and of the desperate pressure to which many of my comrades are subject, while I am deprived of the ability to help them, as in days gone by."

In 1889 she wrote:--

"I am now realising, as never before, how much harder it is to suffer than to serve. I can only assure you again, by letter, that my heart is as much with you as ever. Regard no opposition, persecution, or misrepresentation. Millions upon millions wait for us to bring to them the light of life."

To the great Crystal Palace Demonstration of 1889 she sent a message which was displayed in large letters:--

"My place is empty, but my heart is with you. Go forward. Live holy lives. Be true to The Army. God is your strength. Love and seek the lost. God is my salvation and refuge in the storm."

Hers was, indeed, a prolonged storm of suffering, the strain of which upon The General cannot easily be realised. He would go out, time after time, to his great journeys and Meetings with, necessarily, a gnawing uncertainty as to what might occur in his absence, and would be called, again and again, to what he thought might be her last agony, only to see her, after hours of extraordinary pain and weakness, rally again, to suffer more. To the very end her mind continued to be as clear and powerful as of old, so that her intense interest in everything connected with his work made it difficult for The General to realise that she might at any moment be called away from him. Often through the long hours of the night he would watch beside her.

To a party of Officers who visited her in 1889, she said:--

"I feel that at this moment I could put all my children into their graves, and go to a workhouse bed to die, sooner than I could see the principles of The Salvation Army, for which I have lived and struggled, undermined and sacrificed. God will not fail you. Give the children my dear love, and tell them that, if there had been a Salvation Army when I was ten years old, I should have been as good a Soldier then as I am to-day."

To the last she maintained her interest in comrades who were furthest off, as well as in those who were near. To Australians she sent the message:--

"Tell them I look on them and care for them, as for my English children, and that I expect them to gather in many a sorrowing mother's prodigal, who has wandered far from his Father's house."

Of one of those terrible occasions when it seemed as if the end had come, The General writes, in December, 1889:--

"To stand by the side of those you love, and watch the ebbing tide of life, unable to stem it, or to ease the anguish, is an experience of sorrow which words can but poorly describe. There was a strange choking sensation in the throat which threatened suffocation. After several painful struggles there was a great calm, and we felt the end had come."

What a mercy that nobody knew how many months of agony were yet to follow! It was not till October, 1890, that the end really came. She sent that year to The Army for its Self-Denial Week, the message:--

"My Dear Children and Friends,--

"I have loved you much, and in God's strength have helped you a little. Now, at His call, I am going away from you.

"The War must go on. Self-Denial will prove your love to Christ. All must do something.

"I send you my blessing. Fight on, and God will be with you. Victory comes at last. I will meet you in Heaven.

"Catherine Booth."

On October 1st violent hæmorrhage set in. The General was telegraphed for, and after days and nights of continual suffering and extreme weakness, she passed away on Saturday afternoon, October 4, 1890.

Writing immediately afterwards, The General said:--

"Ever since our first meeting, now nearly forty years ago, we have been inseparable in spirit; that is, in all the main thoughts and purposes of our lives. Oh, what a loss is mine! It cannot be measured."

And yet, anxious, as in every other case, to make the very best of the funeral for the good of souls, The General rose, by God's grace, so completely above his own feelings as to be able to take part in all the unparalleled services that followed. More than forty thousand people visited the Congress Hall, Clapton, to look upon her remains there, and to pray and give themselves to God in many cases, whilst her favourite hymns were sung by bands of Cadets. The coffin was then removed to the Olympia, the largest covered building we could hire in London, and 30,000 persons passed the turnstiles to attend the funeral service, conducted mostly by signs, according to a printed programme.

The next day, the funeral march was restricted to Officers of whom 3,000 were present; but the crowds which looked on as it passed right through from our Headquarters in the City to the Abney Park Cemetery were beyond all computation. A crowd of 10,000, admitted by ticket, surrounded the grave, where The General spoke, as one newspaper reported, "as a Soldier, who had disciplined his emotion without effort, and straight from the heart." Of his wonderful address, we have only room to quote the final words:--

"What, then, is there left for me to do? Not to count the weeks, the days, and the hours which shall bring me again into her sweet company, seeing that I know not what will be on the morrow, nor what an hour may bring forth. My work is plainly to fill up the weeks, the days, and the hours, and cheer my poor heart as I go along, with the thought that when I have served my Christ and my generation, according to the will of God, which I vow this afternoon I will, to the last drop of my blood, that then she will bid me welcome to the skies, as He bade her. God bless you all! Amen."

And then he knelt and kissed the coffin, and we lowered it into the grave. The Chief of the Staff read a form of Covenant, which thousands repeated, and then we parted.

From that very day The General rose up and went forward, sorrowing, as every one could see, to his last days over his irreparable loss, but never allowing his grief to hinder his labours for those who, amidst their afflictions have no heavenly Comforter.

A still further blow was to fall upon him, only three years later. Mrs. Booth had delighted, especially during her years of suffering, in the fellowship of her second daughter, Emma, who had been married to Commissioner Tucker, in 1890, and who had always seemed to The General to be the nearest representative, in many respects, of her mother. He had gladly given her up to go with her husband to India, and was equally willing for her, later, to go to the United States. But he always kept up a very full correspondence with her. Her last letter to him, written on an American train, said:--

"My Precious General,--

"I am still on the wing. We were at St. Louis on Sunday, where we had, in some respects, a rather remarkable day. The entire feeling of the city has been distinctly different since your visit--the sympathy now is most marked.

"I also spoke for 'fifteen minutes' (stretched a little) in the Merchants Exchange, a huge marble structure. No woman, they say, has ever been heard there before. This was on Saturday at noon, and quite a number of the leading business and money men turned up at Sunday's Meetings.

"Can't write more. How I wonder how you are! Up above us all so high, like a diamond in our sky, though perhaps I ought to say cyclone or race-horse, or--but there is no simile fine enough.

"Good-night! Would that you were here, so that I could say it, and hear all that you would like to say, and then start off again to try and carry out your wishes with better success, as

"Your unfailing Emma."

Alas, alas, for the uncertainties of human life! Little did she imagine that before the letter could reach him she would be gone from another train, for ever from his side.

Her own devotion to the War, from her very childhood, had always been such as to set an example to all who knew her. As head, for ten years, of our Training Home for women Officers, she did more than can ever be known to ensure the purity and excellence of The Army's leaders, so that it may be easily guessed how much her father valued her.

As joint leader with her husband of our forces in India, and afterwards in the United States, she never spared herself, but, in spite of repeated illnesses, and without, in any way, neglecting her duties as mother of six children, she travelled and laboured incessantly.

Starting out at one o'clock in the morning of October 28th, from Colorado, to ride to Chicago, she managed to make a rush-call, between trains, in Kansas City, to view a new building The Army was about to take as an Industrial Home. Throughout most of the two days' journey, she was in conversation with one or another Officer as to coming extension of the work until, finding that Colonel Addie, whose Province she last passed, had composed a new song, she asked him to sing it over to her, and to repeat three times the last verse, which was as follows:--

Time and place will cease to know you,

  Men and things will pass away;

You'll be moving on to-morrow,

  You are only here to-day.

Little did either of them imagine how terribly the words were to be verified within four hours of their being sung.

Just as she was leaving her place in one carriage, to go to the sleeping berth prepared for her in another, a tremendous crash announced to all the passengers that the car through which she and one of our Officers were passing had left the rails and been destroyed. Both were buried in the debris. The Colonel (Holland) survived, but Mrs. Booth-Tucker, after lingering in unconsciousness a couple of hours, passed away.

What a blow for The General! He wrote at the end of the year: "This has been, is, and will be, to the end of my earthly chapter, a mysterious and painful dispensation--at least, so it appears at the moment. What God may do for me in the future, and how He may make it work for my good does not at present appear. But He is able to make it mightily helpful to His glory, and the Salvation of souls. With this prospect, God forbid, then, that I should be other than content--nay, filled with praise. I am at present strangely supported and cheered; and not strangely either, for is it not what might have been expected, with so many loving prayers going up to Heaven on my account hour by hour."

Remembering that he had lost not only the most tenderly beloved one left to him, but an Officer holding one of the most important posts he had to fill, we can somewhat estimate the grace that could thus sustain him, and make it possible, even then, to go gladly forward!

Yet again he was to drink the bitter cup of family bereavement, this time affecting his youngest daughter, who had married Commissioner Hellberg, already mentioned as one of our first Swedish Officers.

Not only had he kept all the promise of his first brave and sturdy stand for The Army as a student, but, gaining by every year's experience in various lands, he had shown remarkable ability in many spheres.

With his no less able and devoted wife, he had laboured in India, at International Headquarters, in France and in Switzerland, when consumption, alas! showed itself, and, in spite of all that could be done for him, during years of suffering, in Algiers, and in various resorts of health-seekers, he steadily sank. Though, of course, death had long threatened him, he was caught suddenly at the last, and died in Berlin on the journey homewards to Sweden from South Germany, at a time when his wife could not be with him.

It will be readily understood how much more trying this was to The General than if he had been near to comfort his daughter in all her sorrow. And yet this blow, falling upon him when he was seventy-nine years old, found him no less resolute than ever. He sent this widowed mother out into Denmark, where she was a stranger, to persevere in the fight. She had showed herself, like her father; able to plead at the very grave-side with the crowd, for God.

In connexion with the loss of Mrs. Booth we began a system of special Memorial Services which have been wonderfully blessed. The first one, held on the first anniversary of her death, in the Agricultural Hall--one of the largest buildings in London, was altogether too large for any speaking to be heard. The plan was adopted, therefore, as at the funeral, of a complete form of service, each point of which was indicated on the programme, and by large illuminated signs. By this means the audience, of some 15,000, was able closely and unitedly to join in all the songs and prayers, whilst scenes from Mrs. Booth's life, and messages taken from her writings and from The General's, were also on the great lantern screen passed on to them. Thousands of the most careless and thoughtless were present; but there was no break in the solemnity of the service. Hundreds went as requested, from the Meeting to a room in the stables, to volunteer for life-service as Officers.

What it cost The General to be present on this, and, since then, on similar occasions, specially after his daughter's death, may be imagined; but he never hesitated to endure this, for the sake of the many souls such services have invariably aroused to repentance, faith, and self-sacrifice for the War. Writing, in 1905, to a friend, he says:--

"Were you at the Memorial Service? That was a trying ordeal for me, but I hear that many were benefited. It seems selfish to ask for so many intercessions; but I cannot get on without them. (In all our Memorial Services all present are asked to unite in prayer for the bereaved ones.) The mere fact of my knowing that so large a number of the very elect of the Kingdom are pleading for power and love on my account, helps me forward. God bless and keep and comfort you every day and every hour."

Undoubtedly, these services, whilst blessed to all present, have also served to provoke much prayer and faith for all our bereaved ones, and for The General most of all, and have thus made it easier for him, and for all of us, to triumph over personal sorrows and losses, and press forward to ever-increasing victory.

That The General's example of burying his own sorrows in redoubled effort to cheer and help others has been followed everywhere, may count as large compensation for all he has lost. And yet, all who knew him best, have seen that the wound caused by Mrs. Booth's loss was never healed. With the badge of bereavement, which we have substituted for any costly mourning, ever upon his left arm, just as it was twenty years ago, our first General went onward to the great re-union above, "as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing," his sadness ever touching as many hearts as his merry remarks aroused.

Curiously enough, The General, whilst anxious at all times to remind every one of death and judgment, and to prevent their being so intoxicated by pleasure and passing trivialities as to prevent their thinking of their souls and of eternity, abolished, so far as his followers were concerned, the horrible formalities which, in all countries have come to be thought necessary whenever death and the grave come into view.

Nothing could be more opposed to everything taught by Christ than the usual processes of "Christian burial," and the records of "the departed." He who "brought life and immortality to light" through His Gospel could not wish to see His people's graves surrounded exclusively by signs of mourning, and then plastered over with flattering records of earthly glory, making, as a rule, no mention of His Salvation, and the eternal glories it assures. He manifested, indeed, and always shows the deepest sympathy with our sorrows; but He does so most by teaching us to make them steps to higher life and joy.

This great purpose The General aimed at in all his arrangements as to burials, and thus alleviated sadness, and turned death into victory to a very remarkable extent. No widow or orphan under his Flag will add to all the inevitable costs of nursing the dying those of fashionable "mourning," clothing, flowers, or monuments. The cross and crown badge worn on the left arm by himself and his bereaved ones, sometimes for years, whilst providing a most touching token of abiding affection for lost friends, is, at the same time, a special declaration of faith and hope, and yet obviates entirely the need for any peculiar dress "for the occasion."

Every funeral thus becomes a very valuable opportunity for comforting and strengthening the mourners, and for urging the unsaved to ensure an eternal triumph. It would not be easy to compute the total of crowds thus brought under the sound of the Gospel, in connexion with our losses, every year.

Thus all these occasions for sadness have been turned into fountains of joy, not merely to those most immediately concerned, but to the whole community. We have not yet had time or opportunity, thank God! sufficiently to redeem the grave and the cemetery from the scandal of men-praising expenditure, for any sort of tombstone has generally been too costly for our people. But the small, simple edge-stone which marks the resting-place of "Catherine Booth, Mother of The Salvation Army," and which asks every passer-by, "Do you also follow Christ?" has set an example, consistent with all our past and our eternal future.

Surely, the day will come when our General's teaching and practice in this matter will help to lighten the burden of every bereaved family, and make every cemetery the birthplace of crowds of souls. The music and song with which we surround every deathbed and funeral, still too much tinged sometimes with the follies of traditional show, have already been used by God's Spirit to bring life and gladness to many a spiritually dead soul.

Chapter 20: His Social Work

Most erroneously and unfairly it has been widely assumed that the great work of The General was the establishment in the world of some Social Institutions. Happily, we have got a verbatim report of an address to his Social Officers gathered around him a year before his death in which we have a complete statement as to the beginnings and principles of the work, so that we can see exactly how he wished it to be regarded.

1. By the Social Work, I mean those operations of The Salvation Army which have to do with the alleviation, or removal, of the moral and temporal evils which cause so much of the misery of the submerged classes, and which so greatly hinder their Salvation.

2. Our Social Operations, as thus defined, are the natural outcome of Salvationism, or, I might say, of Christianity, as instituted, described, proclaimed, and exemplified in the life, teaching, and sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Here I would like to say that Social Work, in the spirit and practice which it has assumed with us, has harmonised with my own personal idea of true religion from the hour I promised obedience to the commands of God.

To help the poor, to minister to them in their slums, to sympathise with them in their poverty, afflictions, and irreligion, was the natural outcome of the life that came to my soul through believing in Jesus Christ.

Before many days--nay, before many hours--had passed after my conversion, I was to be found praying in the cottages in the working-class quarters of the town in which I lived, talking in the slums, comforting the dying, and doing, so far as I knew how and had ability, what seemed to me most likely to help the poor and miserable classes, both for this world and the world to come.

3. But Social Work, as a separate entity, or department of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, recognised, organised, and provided for, had to wait for The Salvation Army.

For many years after the commencement of my public work, during which time I had, as opportunity served, helped the poor in their distress, I was deterred from launching out to any great extent in this direction by the fear so commonly entertained that by relieving their physical necessities I should be helping to create, or at any rate to encourage, religious hypocrisy and pretence.

All this time, nevertheless, I felt, and often keenly felt, that there surely must be some way by which, without any evil consequences, I could legitimately fulfil the cravings of my own heart, as well as comply with the commands of my Lord, who had expressly told me that I was to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit the prisoners. For a long time, however, I failed to see how this work could be done in any organised or extensive manner.

Gradually, however, the way opened, and opened largely, as a result of our determination to make the godless crowds hear the message of Salvation.

I said, "They shall hear; we will make them hear; and if they won't hear in any other way, we will feed them, and accompany the food we give them with the message to which they so determinedly turn a deaf ear." In the very earliest days of The Army, therefore, in order to reach the people whom we could not reach by any other means, we gave the hungry wretches a meal, and then talked to them about God and eternity.

4. Then came the gradual unfolding of our Social methods, which have been so remarkably successful.

My dear wife's heart had been particularly drawn out on behalf of the fallen outcasts of society, who, often more sinned against than sinning, appealed peculiarly to her large and tender sympathies. More than once she found opportunity for extending help to individual cases of misfortune, obtaining homes amongst her friends for some of the children, and assisting the poor mothers to win their way back to virtue.

But it was not until the end of 1883, or thereabouts, that anything like a systematic effort in this direction was organised on their behalf. Touched by the helpless and pitiable condition of some poor girls who had sought Salvation at the Corps at which, with her husband, she fought as a Soldier, a baker's wife, living in one of the most wretched streets in Spitalfields, took the girls, in distress and trouble, into her own home. Before long it was crowded to its utmost capacity, and still other women were clamouring for admission. She implored us to help her, and we engaged and opened a house as our first Rescue Home, placing it under the direction of Mrs. Bramwell Booth.

The breaking forth of the same spirit in different directions in other lands quickly followed.

At about this time our first Prison Rescue Brigade, in the Colony of Victoria, was organised by the late Colonel Barker. So striking was the success attending his effort that, before many months had passed by, magistrates in the city of Melbourne were actually giving delinquents the option of being sent to prison or to our Prison-Gate Home, and the Government placed the former Detective Police Building at our disposal, at a nominal rental.

Not only does the genuine Christian spirit carry the soul out in sympathy with misery, but it often leads it to prefer certain particular classes of sufferers or wrongdoers, on whom to lavish its self-sacrificing love, and restlessly spend itself in efforts for their benefit. In the case of one Salvationist, it will be the dying; in another the daughters of sin and shame; in another the homeless; in another the children, and in yet another the drunkards.

With Colonel Barker, as with other comrades under our Flag to-day, it was the criminals.

This spirit thrives and becomes more effective by what it feeds upon. It must, therefore, be wise to favour its preferences, so far as it is possible to do so without losing sight of the well-being of the whole.

We did this with Colonel Barker, and we are acting on the same principle with others to-day.

Then came our first Women's Rescue Home in Melbourne, to help us in the establishment of which the Colonial Government gave £1,000.

It was upon foundations of this character that our Social Operations in New Zealand, France, South Africa, and several other countries were subsequently built up.

For years past our Officers, men and women, both in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, had carried on what may be spoken of as an unorganised form of Slum Work; but it fell to the hands of my glorified daughter, the Consul, to institute, in London, what was then and for some time afterwards known as "the Cellar, Gutter, and Garret Brigade"--the forerunner of scores of Slum Posts, which are now such a recognised feature of our operations all over the world.

Our first Men's Shelter was opened in Limehouse, London, during the winter of 1887-8, and was soon followed by the opening of similar Institutions in other countries, far-off and near at hand.

From our earliest days drunkenness had been one of the many foes of God and man against which we had specially taken our stand, and thousands of its slaves had been rescued from its grip, and become valiant Soldiers in our ranks. Our first Inebriates' Home, conducted in the interest of women, was not, however, opened until 1887. This was in Toronto, Canada.

The Social Work in the United States had its birth in 1885, in an effort made on behalf of prisoners at Hartford, Connecticut. Similar efforts followed in other cities, and Rescue and Industrial Homes, Shelters, and Farm Colonies followed on in due course.

All these enterprises and many others, to which I have not time now to refer, were prior to the publication of "In Darkest England and the Way Out," and had, no doubt, a powerful influence in inspiring that volume.

Since then one branch or other of Social Work has been commenced in every country in which our Flag is flying.

Notwithstanding the satisfaction produced by these and kindred efforts in my own mind, and in the minds of those immediately associated with me, and although the results were truly remarkable, and the possibilities seemed to be still more wonderful, the beginnings of these Social enterprises attracted comparatively little notice.

The New Movement--for thus I may describe it--which, with half an eye, thoughtful men might have seen to be pregnant with blessings for the whole world, was almost unnoticed by either the Authorities or the Press; while our supplies of men and money for its conduct and extension were very limited.

Suddenly, however, the scene was changed, and, all at once, everybody was asking, "What is The Salvation Army?" "Who is General Booth?" and "What is this Social Scheme?"

This change was largely brought about by the publication of "In Darkest England and the Way Out," together with the notices of the Scheme in the Press which it brought about.

Judged by the effect produced, the book was certainly a remarkable one. In the first place it had a title which, in a striking manner described its character. Everybody wanted to see it, and, as a result, it was sold, lent, read, thought about, and talked about in every direction. Nearly a quarter of a million copies were sold. The profits from the publication and sale amounted to about £20,000, of which sum I had the privilege of handing over £5,380--which might have been considered rightfully to accrue to me personally as the Author--to the fund devoted to the promotion of the object for which the book was published.

In its pages I propounded those Schemes which I thought would prove most successful in alleviating the terrible misery I had described, and in rescuing some, at least, of the sufferers from the conduct that produced it.

In order to set the Scheme in motion, I asked the public to give me £100,000, and a further £30,000 per annum to maintain it.

I can never forget the morning that directly followed the appearance of the volume. I was, of course, in ignorance of what the nation would think or say about it.

I had made plans for the book to be delivered to the newspapers at one and the same time, and, regarding the Press as being to some extent the voice of the people, I was anxious to hear what that voice would say.

I was not kept long in suspense. As I ascended the stairs at Headquarters that morning, a gentleman with a countenance beaming with kindness and anxiety met me. I do not think he had ever seen me before, and I was certainly in complete ignorance of him.

"General Booth, I believe?" he said.

"Yes, sir," I answered.

"I have been reading the critique in The Times of your Darkest England Scheme," he said, "and, believing your plan to be right and good, I want to be the first to express my sympathy and practical assistance in carrying it out, and I wish to give you the first £1,000 towards the sum asked for."

This gentleman proved himself a firm friend of the Scheme, actively co-operating with us so far as he had opportunity.

A short time afterwards our friend was present at the opening of our first London Ex-Prisoners' Home. When I had finished speaking he expressed a wish to say a few words. I invited him forward for that purpose. He came, hurried and excited, began to speak, staggered, reeled, fell into my arms and immediately expired. It may be truly said that he died calling down blessings on the Darkest England Scheme.

After meeting this gentleman on the stairs, I had scarcely sat down at my desk, with his cheque in my hand, before a telegram was handed me, from one of the most influential newspaper proprietors in the city, expressing a similar hope, and promising a similar amount for its realisation.

But along with these cheering expressions of approbation there came the invariable murmuring objections. One of these strove to minimise the value of the effort, by arguing that it was only an attempt to extend The Army's religious influence. People said they would be willing to help if all religious and propagandist motives were eliminated from the Scheme.

One night a gentleman was announced as wishing to see me. He declined to give his name, and the only description of him I could gain was that he was a prominent member of the Stock Exchange.

"I want to ask you one question--only one," he said, upon entering my office, "about this Social Scheme of yours."

"All right," I replied, "as many as you like."

"Well," he continued, "I want to know whether you are going to give religion alongside your other benefits to these people whom you seek to help? I am not a religious man myself. I am not saved, and never shall be--I am a lost soul; but there is no reason why these poor wretches should not have religion; and if you will give them religion, I will help you."

"Yes," I answered, "we will give them religion. While we won't refuse to help them because they are irreligious--but, on the contrary, will take in the vilest and the worst--we will give them all as much religion as we can."

"I will help you," he answered, as he handed me Bank of England notes for £500.

He came to see us again and again, proving for the time being a generous friend. Then he disappeared.

In a very short time, and in the readiest and most kindly manner, £104,000 were subscribed. But, alas! only a very small proportion of the £30,000 that was asked for annually was forthcoming.

In this, as in many other similar cases, I have found that whilst the public will be ready--nay, eager--to embrace a new thing, they soon get tired of it, run after some other novelty, and leave you largely to struggle for its continuance, as best you can.

5. It is enough here to state that the results at the onset were remarkable. Amongst others four, which might have been expected, were immediately realised:--

(a) The first was the bringing into public view the ocean of tears, misery, and evil which was rolling around us in every direction.

(b) Another result was that people everywhere were awakened from their selfish lethargy, to look upon these waters of tribulation, and were amazed to find the depth, the darkness, and the despair with which they rolled forward, as well as the damnation to which they invariably led.

(c) A further effect was that a large number of people were won over to care for the class whom it was proposed to benefit, and to believe in the possibility of the Scheme being realised. Many of these proved permanent friends of our Social Operations.

(d) Yet another effect was that the fountains of compassion broke out in the hearts of large numbers of individuals, and led them to make similar efforts. Everywhere the call was sounded to labour for these poor lost people, and instances were adduced which showed that their humble toil was productive of very striking results.

But until now nothing, or next to nothing, had been done to stop this rolling river, or deliver those perishing in its waters, because everybody had felt helpless in the presence of the enormous evil.

But here, now, were results of sufficient magnitude to convince those who became interested in the matter that, by the employment of the methods set forth in "In Darkest England and the Way Out," something permanently effective might be accomplished.

On the other hand, others, as might have been expected, who had never manifested any particular interest before, either for or against, now came out openly as our enemies, and a stiff fight followed, out of which the Social Operations, although in their infancy, may be said to have emerged victorious.

One of the results of this conflict of opinion was the "Darkest England" Inquiry.

The preparation of "In Darkest England" will for ever remain remarkable in my own memory, as it was mostly written and corrected in the adjoining chamber to that in which my dear wife was suffering those awful agonies associated with the disease which finally carried her away.

The spirit which originated and controlled the Social Work had been, pre-eminently, the spirit of her religion. She certainly was the most practical exponent of the Christianity of which I have been speaking that it was ever my lot to meet. It was her religion; she preached it with natural eloquence and remarkable skill; and, in life and death, she exemplified it.

From that day to this the history of the Social Work has been one of steady progress and of surpassing interest, and I have sometimes wondered whether any movement, based so solidly upon principles of permanence, and so calculated to bless the classes for whose benefit it was, by the Providence of God, called into being, has ever existed within the memory of men.

Now what has come out of this beginning?

1. Here is a list of the various Social enterprises we have in hand. I do not vouch for its completeness; but, anyway, we have here a goodly number of schemes for the benefit of the poor and friendless already in active and useful operation:--

The total number of our Social Institutions is now 954.

The value of properties, etc., held for the use of our Social Operations is:--

At Home (U.K.)

£228,000

In other Countries

747,000

Total

£975,000

2. In the history of the Social Work, nevertheless, there have been, as you will know, any number of shortcomings. We have not realised all our expectations, nor fulfilled all our dreams. It was not to be expected that we should. This is an imperfect world; the Movement has been imperfect, and the people who have carried it on have been imperfect also. Consequently, it is only natural that we have had imperfect results.

(a) Many things have been calculated to cause these shortcomings. For example:--

i. There has been a great lack of direct aim at the true goal of our Social Work on the part of some Officers who have been engaged in its direction.

Some of our comrades have been content with a "soup-and-blanket" régime. That is to say, they have too often been satisfied with the alleviation of the miseries of the hour, and have stopped short of the removal of the evils that have caused the poverty, vice, and agony from which the sufferings sprang.

Consequently, the work, being superficial, has in some cases only had superficial and temporary results.

You get out of a thing as much as you put in--and no more, and that, not only in quantity, but in quality. If you go in for root-and-branch efforts, you will get root-and-branch results.

ii. Another cause of our shortcomings has been the lamentable fact that some of our Officers have been deficient in personal religion.

Our Social Work is essentially a religious business. It can neither be contemplated, commenced, nor carried on, with any great success, without a heart full of pity, and love, and endued with the power of the Holy Ghost.

iii. Another of our difficulties has been the scarcity of suitable people for carrying the work on. This was also to be expected.

If we had been content with hirelings, and had sought them out from among the philanthropies and Churches, we should have found plenty in number, but it is equally certain we should have had considerably more doleful failures than those we have experienced.

We are not only making but are now training the Social Officers, and we shall doubtless improve in this respect, whilst the work they turn out will be bound to improve proportionately.

iv. Then again a further reason for our shortcomings has been our shortness of money.

This need unfortunately is not passing away, as you will all well know. But I suppose some of you have come from distant lands with bags of francs and dollars to present The General with an ample supply of this requirement. He thanks you beforehand.

(b) Nevertheless, and notwithstanding all our shortcomings, the position now occupied by our Social Operations, and the influence exercised by them on the great and small of the earth, is in evidence in every Continent and on every hand.

There is no doubt that the world, as a whole, feels much of the admiration and gratitude which the Press lavished upon me on my recent Birthday--admiration which was assuredly intended not only for myself, but for The Army as a whole, and not only for The Army as a whole, but for its Social Workers in particular.

1. And now, in conclusion, let me summarise a few of the advantages which have flowed out of the Social Work, and which will continue to flow out of it as long as time rolls on.

(a) The first benefit I will mention is the Salvation of thousands of souls.

(b) The world has been further benefited by the knowledge of Salvation spread throughout every part of the habitable globe.

(c) The world has been further benefited by the Conviction that has been brought to governmental, philanthropic, and religious agencies, as to the duty they owe to the classes we seek to benefit.

(d) The world has been further benefited by the sympathy created in the hearts of royal personages, scientists, literary people, and the Press generally; indeed, in every class and grade of mankind.

(e) The world has been further benefited by the removal of misery on such an extensive scale as had never even been dreamed of as possible.

Think of the multitudes who, by our operations, are daily saved from starvation, vice, crime, disease, death, and a hundred other nameless woes.

In some of the principal cities in Italy, Holland, Germany, and elsewhere, visited during my recent Continental Campaign, I have been looked upon with unspeakable satisfaction and enthusiasm as The General of the Poor, and The Salvation Army has been regarded as their friend.

(f) The world has been further benefited by the help which our Social Operations have afforded to the Field and other Departments of The Army all over the world.

(g) The world has been further benefited by the confidence the Social Work has created in the hearts and minds of our own people--both Officers and Soldiers--as to the truth and righteousness of the principles and practices of The Salvation Army.

(h) The world has been further benefited by the answer which the Social Work constitutes to the infidel's sneers at Christianity and the assertion of its effeteness.

Truly, our future chroniclers will have to record the fact that our Social Operations added a celestial lustre and imparted a Divine dignity to the struggles of the early years of The Salvation Army's history.

To our own eyes in The Army, however, that which has been done in connexion with the Institutions is only a very insignificant part of the whole effect produced. Until the present movement all over the world in favour of the betterment of the social condition of the masses of the people has had time to accomplish definite results, our Institutions may yet have a good work to do.

But the great work The General did in this connexion was the restoration to men's minds of the Saviour's own view, that we owed to every man every care that a truly brotherly heart must needs bestow. That principle, as The General pointed out, had always been acted upon, as best it could be, from the beginning, and is daily acted upon to-day, wherever The Army exists.

Chapter 21: Motoring Triumphs

During one of his Motor Tours The General remarked:--

"It was here (Banbury) that the idea of a Motor Campaign was conceived. Seven or eight years ago (1900) I held an afternoon Meeting in this place. On that occasion a crowd of my own people and friends came to the station to give me a send-off. Such was the affection shown, and so manifest was the pleasure derived from my visit, that I said to myself:--

"'Why should I not impart this satisfaction to those comrades and friends throughout the country who have never had the satisfaction of seeing my face, or hearing my voice?'

"And then the idea occurred to my mind that the automobile would not only be the readiest means of transit, but the only plan by which I could reach the small towns and outlying hamlets. Moreover, it would perhaps prove the only method by which we could get through the crowds who would be likely to assemble on such a Campaign."

By most men, in their prime, it would be thought an ample filling up of any week to address three large Meetings on the Sunday, and one each week night; but The General, at seventy-four, saw that, travelling by motor, and visiting in the daytime such smaller towns and villages as had never seen him before, or not for many years, he could not only reckon upon three large indoor Meetings every day, but speak, perhaps, to millions of people he had never before addressed. And so in six Motor Tours he passed from end to end and from side to side of Great Britain, gathering crowds from day to day for six weeks at a time.

We have met with people frivolous enough to write of all that as if The General's Motor Tours were luxuries! In one glorious sense they were really so, for, to him, there could never be a greater luxury than to proclaim the Gospel to a crowd. But, as a matter of fact, he found it less expensive to travel in this way than to go as he ordinarily did for a long journey to and from London by train to reach each town separately.

And the economy of Army forces, by means of Motor Tours, has been marvellous, every little Corps and village Outpost on the route on week-days being given an opportunity to gather crowds they never ordinarily reached together, and to unite their own efforts for once with those of their General in trying to lift up Christ more than ever before.

And The General was so alive to the value of inflaming the love of any handful of villagers or children, but especially of his Soldiers and Officers to the Master, that it was to him a continual delight to move about amongst his Soldiery in every land.

The General could rarely venture to plan very far ahead, because his public appearances had all to be made to fit in with other and often even more important engagements, of which only his Staff knew anything. It is, indeed, marvellous how few engagements he made ever had to be broken, and how successful almost every Campaign of his has been, seeing at how short notice most of them were undertaken. In one of his diaries I found a bitter complaint of the waste of time involved in having to wait for three hours between the steamboat and train. "Why," he asks, "could they not have arranged a Meeting for me?"

One who has travelled 8,000 miles with him on four Motor Tours says, though everybody, everywhere, pressmen included, were of necessity impressed with his sincerity and transparency, they could see that he had all the time only one object in view, the glory of God and the Salvation of souls.

And it is the extent to which he led all ranks into the same spirit which made it easy for arrangements to be made and carried out in so few hours for the very largest demonstrations, as to which it was never possible to hold any approach to a rehearsal, those joining in them living usually so widely apart from each other.

An occasional private letter gives, perhaps, the best possible explanation of his own heart in this perpetual motion towards the Cross. Who that saw him in some grand demonstration could imagine that he had been feeling just before it as this letter reveals:--

"My feelings alternate; but my faith is steadfast. Morning, noon, and night I tell God He is my only help. He will not fail me. To-night's Meeting will be, as you say, a great strain; but the memories of God's goodness encourage me to go forward in spite of unutterable sadness and gloom."

And who that heard him on one of those Congresses, in which a great company of his Officers and Soldiers felt themselves to be feasting on heavenly manna for days together, could imagine his writing the week after:--

"If ever I felt my full agreement with my Lord's definition of service as expressed in the parable, I do to-day. After all, I am a poor, unprofitable servant, and I have lost no little sleep since Friday night in criticising regretfully and condemning my share of the wonderful Congress that has certainly taken a large part of the world by storm. Nevertheless, I thank God from the bottom of my heart for the part I have been allowed to have in the matter."

Amongst the incidents of all touring, but especially of motoring, are storms such as the one The General thus triumphed over:--

"We are still rushing on. I had five Meetings yesterday, Friday, and an hour's ride through the most blinding storm I ever encountered. Two of our cars broke down, gave up, and retreated to the nearest town for the night; another got through in a damaged condition, and three with difficulty arrived at our destination. However, we who did get in, were rewarded with a big audience and a big reception. It was very wonderful. I am now reckoning on the closing Meeting which takes place on Wednesday afternoon.

"Everybody continues to bless me and speak well of me. Is it not a little surprising, and, viewed from the Master's Standpoint, a little dangerous? You must keep on praying that my faith fail not. Abundance of trying things await me. I must wait for my rest 'until the Morning.' God bless you!"

Well may a man sometimes long for rest who has experiences like the following:--

"I nearly killed myself on Saturday and Sunday at Birmingham. For some cause or other both throat and head got wrong, and it was with difficulty I could frame my sentences or pronounce my words, and yet I had to meet the great opportunity that was presented. I am paying the price to-day in weariness extreme. There is hardly a bone in my body that does not ache, or a nerve that does not seem overstrung.

"But I shall rally and be myself again; indeed, I must, for things of vast importance have to be attended to before the day is out. Our exchequer is empty, and I have to prepare for my autumn Campaign in Holland, Germany, Italy, etc."

"A mile or two after Penzance, the chauffeur turned to General Booth, and 'Now she's waking up!' he said, with a satisfied sigh, as the great car began to hurry through the open lanes.

"The General nodded his head meditatively. 'Yes,' he said, in his beard, 'people have to wake up before they begin to move. England wants waking up; I'm trying to wake her up myself, just a little, and then we shall move.'

"I asked him what he made of our national apathy.

"He shook his head. 'I don't know how it is," he said, 'but people are somehow afraid to examine themselves, afraid to see facts as facts. There is a spirit in England which is worse than opposition to religion; it's a spirit of--of--of detachment, of separation, a spirit which says, "I don't want you, I can do without you; and so long as you leave me alone I shan't interfere with you." It's a kind of slackness. They want waking up. They want rousing. They want a good shaking. It seems as if they have fallen into a deep slumber--opium-eaters!'

"He is setting out to rouse England once again, make one great final effort for the future of humanity. The future of humanity, he believes, can only be secured by 'conversion.'

"Look at him in his car! There he sits, with a light-coloured overcoat buttoned round his neck, a grey forage cap pressed over his ears, his hands in his pockets, his eyes looking straight ahead, and his lips biting at his beard--an old, old man in the newest of motor-cars.

"Through lanes where Wesley rode his horse, poring over a book as he went, General Booth flies in his beflagged car--on the same errand. These two men, so dissimilar in nature, so opposed in temperament, and separated by nearly two hundred years, the one on horseback, the other in a motor-car, sought and are seeking the same elusive end--the betterment of humanity.

"One feels as one rides along our country roads with General Booth the enormous force of simple Christianity in this work of evolution. One sees why Wesley succeeded, and why The Salvation Army is succeeding.

"'We make too much of sin,' says evolution. 'We don't make half enough of sin!' cries The General. Politicians and men of science seem like scene-shifters in the drama of life, and religion stands out clear and distinct as the only actor.

"'People have taken to The Salvation Army because it's so kind to poor people,' General Booth tells me; 'they know I love the poor, they know I weep bitterly for all the hunger and nakedness and sorrow in the world. People know I'm sincere. That's it! They know The Salvation Army is sincere, that it's doing kind actions, and helping those whom nobody else will help or can help. That's what makes us popular. Sympathy.'

"But the secret of The General is not humaneness. His secret is the reality with which he invests sin. Hear him talk about sin, and you realise the man's spell.

"At one moment he is full of humour and robust talk, a genial, merry, shrewd-eyed old gentleman; at the next--at the mention of real sin--his brows contract, his eyes flash, and his tongue hisses out such hatred and contempt and detestation as no sybarite could find on the tip of his tongue for anything superlatively coarse or ill-flavoured.

"'Sin!' he cries to me. 'Sin is a real thing--a damnable thing! I don't care what science calls it, or what some of the pulpits are calling it. I know what it is. Sin is devilish. It is sin and only sin which is stopping progress. It is sin and only sin which prevents the world from being happy. Sin! Go into the slums of the great cities--pick up little girls of six years of age sold into infamy by their parents; look at the drunken mother murdering her child, the father strapping his cripple son--sin!--that's what I call sin; something beastly and filthy and devilish and nasty--nasty, dreadfully nasty.'

"As you listen and as you realise that The Salvation Army contains numberless men changed in the twinkling of an eye from lives of such sin as this to lives of beneficent activity, you begin to feel that General Booth, right or wrong, has at least hit upon one of the most effective ways for helping evolution.

"He makes sin as real to the individual as only the mystics can imagine for themselves. Perhaps humanity likes to be told how black it is, how far it is from the perfectness after which Nature is blundering and staggering. I know not; but it is manifest that when this grim old man, with the ivory face, the black, flashing eyes, the tangle of white hair and the tangle of beard, leans over the rostrum and calls sin 'beastly' and 'devilish' and 'nasty' the people sit as white and spellbound as the patient of the hypnotist.

"It is a different General Booth whom the villagers flock to see as he drives, smiling and genial, through Cornish villages, whom the band plays into towns, and whom mayors and councillors receive with honour. But the reason of this honour and this popularity is the fact that he is a force, a living, breathing power who has made sin real to the world and has awakened the religious consciousness in thousands of human beings."

William Booth was always very wide awake to the discouraging emptiness of mere demonstrations, and never expressed himself more contemptuously with regard to them than when he thought that any of his Officers, in the midst of some grand display, which was attracting unusual attention, seemed to be likely to be satisfied with the show of what had been done, instead of pressing forward to greater things.

Yet he saw that, in presence of the continual and enthralling exhibitions of the world, there was absolute need for such manifestations of united force as might encourage every little handful, usually toiling out of sight, and convince the world that we were determined fully to overcome all its attractions.

There had been before his time large demonstrations in favour of teetotalism, and in some parts of the country the Sunday Schools were accustomed annually to make displays of more or less fashionably-dressed children and teachers. But The General was alone in his own country and time in organising any such public demonstrations in honour of Christ, and of total abstinence from sin and from worldly-mindedness.

How perfectly The General could always distinguish between the enjoyment of demonstration and of real fighting, was strikingly manifested on one of our great Crystal Palace days. Looking down from the balcony upon the vast display, when some 50,000 Salvationists were taking part in various celebrations, he noticed a comparatively small ring of our converted military and naval men kneeling together on the grass, evidently within hearing of one of the band-stands upon which one Band after another was playing, according to programme.

"Go and stop that Band," said he to one of his A.D.C.'s. "We must not have those praying men hindered in their fight for souls by the music."

And this was only one example of his frequent abandonment of any programme, or practice, or arrangement which seemed to him only to have demonstrative effect, when any more enduring benefit could be otherwise secured.

In short, demonstration in his eyes was only valued at its military worth, and he never wished any one to become so occupied with appearance as to miss enduring victory.

The following description, by a writer in a big London daily, of one of The General's tours might be fairly accepted as a sample of them all, and as giving some idea of the way in which they manifested his care for all that concerned men:--

"'An easy day' was The General's description of that on which we fared to mediæval Godalming, through the beautiful Hindhead region to Petersfield, and thence in the evening to antiquity and Winchester. He meant that he had only to address three great gatherings (the day's course admitted of scarcely any of the customary wayside and hamlet musters), so his oratory would be merely a matter of five hours or thereabouts. There were solid fact in The General's airy designation; it was an easier day than most of those of the tour; but it had sundry distinctions of its own, apart from the great, welcoming Meetings.

"It was curious and pleasant to see gipsies salute The General from their wayside Bohemia on the road to Hindhead; it was delightful to see The General himself as he descended and spoke to the church school-children who hailed him by the wayside at Roke, in one of the most charming wayside spots on the journey. They stood with their teachers under the trees in the sunshine, little pictures of bloom and happiness. 'Now wouldn't you like to be running round the country on a motor?' he asked them straight away, and their answer come with hearty directness. In a naïve and tender little speech, that had a touch of airiness, he told them of the joy of motoring, turning anon to the many glad and beautiful things within the reach of little people who yet might not go a-motoring, and so in simple little touches appealing to the joy of life and soul that the child-sense could understand.

"'Isn't he like Father Christmas?' a little girl was heard to whisper. Here he charmed those in the morning of life; away at Petersfield in the afternoon the sight of him consoled some in life's evening. One poor old lady, who had lost the use of both limbs, was carried to her door and set in a bath-chair, and there she remained till The General had passed. We noticed the light on her face, and how vehemently she waved her handkerchief. An Army Officer chatted with her before we left the town in the evening. 'I can now die happy,' she said; 'I have seen The General. And when the call comes I know that God will send down the hallelujah motor for me, and the loss of my old limbs won't matter in the least.'

"I have mentioned 'an easy day.' Having now described in a broad way the typical early stages, it may be well, in a somewhat more intimate and personal way, to give an idea of the work, moods, and trend of the average day of the whole tour. The stress and excitement it meant in the long stretch of country from the first town to the last were extraordinary. We mustered, as a rule, at nine in the morning for the day's work and travel, most of the folk of the town where the night had been spent turning out for the send-off.

"The General was on the scene almost invariably to the minute. Nearly always at those starts he looked grave, resigned, and calm, but unexpectedly careworn. It was as if he had wrestled with all his problems, with a hundred world-issues in the watches of the night, and was still in the throes of them, and unable for the moment to concentrate his attention on the immediate town and crowd that hurrah'd around him. But, of course, he stood up and acknowledged the plaudits--though often as one in a dream. But the picturesqueness of his appearance in the morning sunshine--with his white hair, grave face, and green motor garb--took the imagination of the mass, and without a word from him the people were left happy.

"He looked a new personality at the first important stopping-place, reached usually about an hour before noon. His air and mood when he stepped to the platform for the public Meeting had undergone a radiant change; all the more radiant, we noticed, if the children who had hailed him from the waysides had been many and strenuous. There was something of the child in his own face as he stepped to the platform's edge, and replied to the enthusiasm of the house by clapping his own hands to the people. There was always something naïve and delightful in The General's preliminary task of applauding the audience.

"Here came his first important address of the day, lasting an hour and a half, or even longer. It had many 'notes,' and displayed The General in many moods. He was apt to be facetious and drily humorous at first. He had racy stories to tell--and none can tell a story for the hundredth time with fresh zest than he--in illustration of the old and bitter prejudices against The Army. A typical one was that of an old woman, arrested for the hundredth time for being drunk and disorderly, who was given the option of going to prison or being passed over to The Salvation Army. Too drunk to realise what she did, she decided for the latter. She was kindly tended, set in a clean cosy bed, and watched over by a sister till the morning. When she woke the sunlight streamed through the window, and the happy, unaccustomed surroundings surprised her. 'Where am I?' she exclaimed in bewilderment. 'You are with The Salvation Army,' said the sister kindly and softly. 'Oh, goodness gracious,' roared the old woman, 'take me away, or I'll lose my reputation!'

"Often in these long and comprehensive addresses The General told how he found the work of his life. He was never so impressive as at this stage. And the tale in its intensity was ever new. His language was nervous, intense, almost Biblical, his figure suggestive of a patriarch's in a tragedy. 'Sixty years ago--sixty years ago--sixty years ago,' each time with a different and a grimmer intonation--'the Spirit of the Living God met me.... I was going down the steep incline when the great God stopped me, and made me think.'

"In the last stage of his address he was the coloniser, the statesman, the social wizard who would recast character and rearrange humanity. He gave an epic sense to the story of emigration and colonisation. But he was invariably clear and lucid in his detail, so that the immediate and practical meaning of it all was never lost on the mayors, and corporation and council worthies, who heard him. Then miles and miles away at the second important stopping-place in the early afternoon, after incidental wayside speeches and idylls, he went over the same ground in a further address of an hour or more. Somehow in the afternoon he appeared to speak with added individuality and passion, as if the wants and woes of the world had been growing upon him since the morning.

"A needed rest, perhaps a little sleep, then away once more by the waysides and through the welcoming hamlets. The third and last great stopping-stage was reached, as a rule, about eight o'clock. He typified serene old age as he stood up in the white car, passing the long lines of cheering humanity. Here in the evening light it was not easy to regard him as a propagandist. He might be a study for Father Christmas, or a philosopher who dealt much in abstractions and knew little of men. The General who, twenty minutes later, proclaimed his spiritual truths and his social ideals to a new audience, seemed, once more, an absolutely different personality. Often at these evening meetings he spoke for the better part of two hours."

Chapter 22: Our Financial System

The continued strain to raise the money needed for the work was, undoubtedly, to William Booth the greatest part of his burden all the way through life. And it is to this day the puzzle which makes it most difficult to write as to The Army's finances. On the one hand, we have to praise God for having helped him so cheerily to shoulder his cross that he did not seem many times to feel the burden that was almost crushing him to the ground, and hindering all sorts of projects he would gladly have carried out. Yet, on the other hand, we must guard against saying anything that could lead to the impression that The Army has now got to the top of its hill of difficulty, and needs no more of the help, in small sums as well as in big ones, that has been so generously sent to it.

It would be hopeless to attempt to estimate the numbers of appeals The General sent out in any one year, for he not only tried at fixed periods to get for his various funds truly interested subscribers, but was always seeking to link the hearty giver with the deserving receivers.

But perhaps the very extremity of his one need helped him with the most practical wisdom to avoid all unnecessary expenditure, and to cultivate all those habits of economy and systematic effort which alone made it possible to keep up so vast a work mainly by the gifts of the poor. To this very day it is the same old struggle to get each £5 that is wanted together. Yet all of it is precious to us because it so guarantees exemption from indifference, and the pervasion of all our ranks everywhere with the principles of self-help which The General always so inculcated as to make The Army everywhere independent of the wealthy, yet their trusted and skilful almoners.

Rejoicing as we do in all that, we cannot too strongly guard every one against the impression that The Army has become, either at its centre, or anywhere else, so situated that there is not at any given moment extraordinary strain in some financial direction. It has come to be very generally known that the individual Officer can only keep in existence because he has schooled his desires to be content with what others all around would regard as "an impossible pittance."

We hear one day of a great city where the conditions of life are such that a Rescue Home is evidently urgently needed, and the lady who calls our attention to the matter offers at once to find £500 towards the fitting-up of such a Home. But we know that to keep it up requires gifts amounting to some thousands of pounds each year, which, if not subscribed locally, we shall have to provide from Headquarters.

Now what is to be done? Are we to stand still with what seems to us so valuable an offer, not only of money-helps but of opportunity to help? Under the circumstances we know what The General would have done. He would without a moment's hesitation have said: "This ought to be done, and must be done"; and, trusting in God, he would have made the other step forward, though perfectly conscious that it would probably involve him in new cares and anxieties.

"Four shillings and tenpence. Now, really, can't we manage that twopence to make five shillings?"

Such an appeal, heard at a street-corner, where one of our Open-Air Meetings is being closed, is, I fear, the first and last that many people hear of The Salvation Army. They have not been present at the Meeting. All the beautiful speaking and singing of happy men and women, anxious to do anything they can for the good of others--of this the passers-by know nothing. Many of them "would not be seen standing to listen" amidst the crowd, still less when, for want of any considerable crowd, they would be more conspicuous. Hence they have no chance to see or know what really takes place. Had they even seen the whole process of getting that four shillings and tenpence they would have noted that most of the money really came from the Salvationists forming the ring, who threw their pence, or sixpences, gradually, in the hope of inciting others to do likewise.

As it is, I fear, many go their way "disgusted at the whole thing," because of the little scrap of it they have overheard.

But, pray, what is the essential difference between the call for "twopence to make up a shilling," and the colossal call made in the name of some royal personage for "an additional ten thousand pounds" to make up the £25,000 needed for a new hospital wing? Surely, a hospital, whose value and services commend it to the entire population should need no such spurs as subscription lists published in all the papers, or even the memory of a world benefactor to help it to get the needed funds. But it does, and its energetic promoters, be they royal or not, deserve and get universal praise for "stooping"--if it be stooping--to any device of this kind needed to get the cash. Do they get it? is the only question any sensible person asks.

And nobody questions that our "stooping" Officers and "begging Sisters" get the twopences and shillings and pounds needed to keep The Army going, in spite of all its critics--whether of the blatant street-corner, or of the kid-gloved slanderer type.

If we reflect upon the subject we shall see how sound and valuable are the principles on which all our twopenny appeals are based.

From the very beginning The General always set up the standard of local self-support as one of the essentials of any real work. Whilst labouring almost exclusively amongst the poorest of the poor, he wrote, in 1870:--

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